All the Way Home

By Wendy Corsi Staub

New York Times–bestselling Author: “Staub’s scary plot expertly mixes teen and adult perspectives and themes . . . keeps readers guessing.” —Publishers Weekly
 
For ten years, Rory Connelly has been haunted by the memory of her rebellious older sister Carleen, who vanished from her bed one night and was never seen again. When Rory returns home to care for her ailing mother and teenage sister in upstate New York, she discovers a family that has never recovered from the tragic events of so long ago.
 
That summer, the quiet little town of Lake Charlotte was torn apart when four teenage girls vanished—a mystery that still puzzles its residents. Now, a decade later, on the anniversary of the first disappearance, another girl goes missing, and the community is consumed with fear.
Rory is about to relive her worst nightmare—only this time, her own life is at stake . . .
 
“If you like Mary Higgins Clark, you’ll love Wendy Corsi Staub.” —#1 New York Times–bestselling author Lisa Jackson

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9780062230126

Wendy Corsi Staub

USA Today and New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels and has twice been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband and their two children.

Book preview

All the Way Home

WENDY CORSI STAUB

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DEDICATION

For my boys,

Brody and Morgan—

and my guy, Mark.

CONTENTS

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

An Excerpt from The Good Sister

An Excerpt from Nightwatcher

An Excerpt from Sleepwalker

An Excerpt from Shadowkiller

About the Author

By Wendy Corsi Staub

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

Carleen Connolly is the third to disappear.

Rory realizes, after it has happened, that she has somehow, somewhere in the back of her mind, been expecting it all along—­that perhaps she’s always understood that one day she would wake up to find her older sister gone forever.

The thing is, she had pretty much figured on Carleen—­reckless, impulsive Carleen—­getting into a terrible accident with the Chevy, which she has been sneaking out of the garage at night for years, long before she actually turned sixteen and got her license. Whenever Rory heard the ominous wail of ambulance sirens from her bed at night, she would brace herself for a ringing phone or a knock on the door—­for the imminent news that her sister was dead, that she’d gone and wrapped the Chevy around a pole or missed a curve out on winding Lakeshore Road.

Or maybe she had believed Carleen would run off with one of the older boys she was always seeing—­elope to Maryland the way Mrs. Shilling’s daughter, Diana, had a few years back.

Then again, Carleen might just leave home alone, on her own, headed for New York City a few hours south. How many times, after a screaming battle with their parents, had Carleen threatened to do just that? I’m going to run away! You wait and see. I’m out of here!

And Daddy would shout back, You want to leave? Go ahead. See how far you get with no money and no high school diploma.

And Rory, when she had been young enough to think her sister was serious about leaving, would cry and beg Carleen not to run away. Because, even though there always seemed to be some kind of trouble when Carleen was around, the thought of life without her was depressing.

Well, now Carleen is gone.

And Rory’s life isn’t just depressing; it has turned into a nightmare.

Because her sister hasn’t had an accident.

And she hasn’t eloped, or run away.

Carleen has simply disappeared.

Just like the two teenaged girls before her.

Nice, wholesome girls who grew up here in Lake Charlotte, New York, a sleepy village in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, where ­people chat with each other from front porches and keep an eye on each other’s children and leave their doors unlocked at night . . .

Until this summer.

Everything changed when the first girl vanished. Kirstin Stafford. Age thirteen. Never came home from an after-­dinner bike ride around the lake on a hot June evening.

Then, a few weeks later, it was Allison Myers, a fifteen-­year-­old who disappeared from a Fourth of July picnic out at Point Cedar Park.

No trace of either girl was ever found.

Now there is Carleen Connolly, seventeen, whose mother found her canopy bed empty one morning in late July in the third-­story bedroom of the big old house at 52 Hayes Street.

For years after, Rory Connolly will do a double take every time she sees a girl with long, straight black hair, or catches a whiff of Poison perfume, or hears a piercing, high-­pitched whistle, the kind you make by sticking two fingers into your mouth.

Carleen had long, straight black hair.

Carleen wore Poison perfume.

Carleen used to whistle like that.

But Carleen is gone.

She probably just ran away, Rory’s next-­door neighbor, Emily Anghardt, keeps saying reassuringly, her big brown eyes solemn and her voice, still retaining a hint of a southern accent, low and soothing. You know how Carleen is.

Yes, Rory knows how Carleen is. Everyone in Lake Charlotte knows how Carleen Connolly is.

How she seemed like such a nice girl until she became a teenager, when she started smoking and drinking and got caught shoplifting beer at the A&P. How she disrespectfully calls her parents by their first names behind their backs and sometimes even to their faces, and how she brags about stealing money from her mother’s purse, and how she curses and cuts classes and cheats her way through school.

What most ­people don’t remember, though, is that Carleen has another side—­a vulnerable side.

Carleen once came sobbing out of the woods carrying a rabbit whose leg had been bloodied and broken in a hunter’s trap, and she insisted on paying for the veterinarian bill out of her allowance, then held the suffering animal in her lap while the vet put it out of its misery, stroking its matted fur as it heaved its last shuddering breath.

Carleen used to go over and play the piano for old Miss Prendergrast next door, and shovel her walk when it snowed, and of all the neighborhood children, only Carleen was allowed to pick the raspberries from the briars that grew along Mrs. Prendergrast’s back fence.

And sometimes—­long after Carleen had outgrown the Barbie dolls she and Rory had always shared and she had taken to making fun of her little sister’s babyish games whenever anyone else was in earshot—­she would pop into Rory’s bedroom and play Barbies with her, making her swear not to tell a soul.

Rory never had.

Rory knows something else about her big sister that she wouldn’t dare tell anyone, not even Emily, even though they’ve been best friends ever since Emily’s family moved into Mrs. Prendergrast’s house almost two years ago.

Rory must keep her sister’s deepest, darkest secret, even now that Carleen is gone. After all, she promised.

Don’t worry, Rory, Emily says daily. Carleen’ll be back sooner or later.

And Rory wants to scream at her to stop saying it, to just shut up, even though she knows Emily is only trying to make her feel better. After all, what else can one friend say to another under circumstances like these? Emily can hardly voice what’s on everyone’s mind as the grim, steamy August days drift by with no evidence, no leads, no word.

No, Emily can hardly say to Rory, Carleen has obviously been kidnapped and probably murdered by some psycho child molester, and it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again.

So Rory mutely lets Emily reassure her, and she constantly looks over her shoulder, and there never seems to be a moment during that endless, humid summer when she isn’t wondering about Carleen, and what has happened to her.

And when it happens again—­when her best friend Emily Anghardt disappears just before Labor Day weekend—­Rory realizes that no matter where her life takes her, no matter what happens to her from now until the day she dies, she will never feel safe again.

CHAPTER ONE

"So, Rory . . . thanks. For coming," Kevin says gruffly, his eyes focused on the Departures screen above their heads, as if he’s looking for his commuter flight to JFK in New York, which he’s checked and double-­checked countless times already.

Gate four, On Time, 4:35 P.M.

It’s only three-­thirty now.

Rory watches the earnest expression on her younger brother’s face, wondering when he turned into a man. It’s as though she hasn’t looked at him, really looked, on the few occasions she’s seen him since she left home.

Last night, she hadn’t gotten in until late, and she was so exhausted from the long hours of driving that she hadn’t stayed up to socialize. Today there was a flurry of activity as she settled in and Kevin prepared to leave.

And then she was driving him to the airport, and here they are, and she’s noticing for the first time that there’s a shadow of a beard covering Kevin’s jaw and that his always lanky frame has picked up some bulk, filling out the thin cotton shirt and snug faded jeans he’s wearing. He’s grown up, and for the first time, he’s striking out on his own.

She realizes he’s talking to her, thanking her.

You’re welcome, she tells him, reaching up to brush a clump of sandy hair out of his eyes.

Tell Mom . . . He trails off, shrugging. Never mind. I guess it doesn’t matter what you tell her. She won’t understand. She doesn’t understand anything, except that I’m leaving. She can’t figure out why, or that I’ll be back, even though I’ve told her . . .

She’ll be all right, Rory assures him, noting the worry in his green eyes, trying to push back a wave of guilt that sweeps over her.

He’s old beyond his years, her kid brother.

Thanks to her.

He’s the one who was at home to pick up the pieces when Daddy dropped dead of a brain aneurysm a year and a half after that terrible summer.

That was what had done their mother in. Becoming a widow. No longer having a husband there to take care of her, the way Daddy had in the twenty years they were married.

Maura Connolly had always been fragile, always nervous, always unstable.

After Kevin’s birth, she had gone into a deep depression that lasted almost a year, Rory remembered. She locked herself away in her room, not even emerging to attend daily mass, as she always had, and Daddy hired a nanny to take care of the baby and Rory and Carleen, and he finally forced Mom to go see a doctor. Nobody ever said psychiatrist, but that must have been it, Rory later realized. The doctor had put her on some kind of medication, and eventually, she had come back to life. She was never quite the same, but at least she could function as a normal human being.

But when she lost first Carleen, and then Daddy, she went off the deep end again, this time for good. Her eyes had gradually grown vacant; her body weak and frail; her voice listless; her mind, apparently, ultimately retreating to some distant place.

Rory had realized it was happening, of course. She would have to be blind not to notice her mother’s withdrawal from the world.

But she was away at college by then—­way out in California, as far from Lake Charlotte as she could get. And she rarely came home once she left, unable—­or maybe just unwilling—­to face the echoing emptiness in the big old house on Hayes Street, and the three ­people who lived there still, amidst the memories.

Just Mom, and Kevin, and Molly, who had just turned three when Carleen vanished, and who couldn’t possibly remember her sister very well, or Daddy, either, even though she liked to claim that she could.

There had been a time when Molly, as a preschooler, had insisted on calling Kevin Daddy. She wouldn’t stop for a year or two, though he corrected her repeatedly.

Well, Kevin has been a father to Molly, Rory reminds herself. The only real parent Molly has known, with Mom the way she is.

And now Kevin, who has just graduated from the Albany college he attended as a commuter student, is leaving to spend the summer in Europe.

Which is why Rory has come home at last.

Because Molly, at thirteen, is too young to take care of herself full time.

And Mom . . .

Well, Mom needs to be taken care of, too.

She leaves the stove burners on, Rory, Kevin is saying, as he toys with the strap of his conspicuously new carryon duffel bag. So be sure that you check the stove every night before you go to bed. She makes tea, and then she forgets.

I’ll check them. She doesn’t mention that this is the third time he warned her about Mom and the burners.

"And she’ll want to wear a sweater every day, even when it’s ninety degrees out. Don’t let her. She’ll pass out from heat exhaustion, like last summer. I put most of her sweaters—­"

I know. In the black trunk in the attic.

But she might find them. She’s always up there lately, poking around. God knows why. Anyway, the trunk is locked. The key is—­

In the drawer above the bread bin in the pantry.

Sorry. He flashes a tight smile. I can’t remember what I’ve told you and what I haven’t. There’s so much you have to worry about, between Mom and Molly . . .

Rory nods. Molly, with her dark curls and flashing blue eyes, has reportedly been a handful lately.

I just worry, Rory, Kevin says, inhaling deeply, then puffing his cheeks and letting the air out audibly, rocking back on his heels.

Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. Please don’t worry.

It’s my turn, Rory adds silently, as guilt once again creeps over her. How could she have turned her back on the three of them for so many years? How could she have left Kevin, barely an adult even now, to cope alone?

Simple.

She just hasn’t allowed herself to look back. Hasn’t allowed the painful memories to haunt her. And the more time that passed, the easier it was to forget about the sister and father and best friend she had lost—­and the family she’d basically abandoned.

Meanwhile, she had gotten her art degree from Berkeley, then wandered the country for a ­couple of years, footloose and unfettered, as though she hadn’t a care in the world. She worked as a ski instructor in Colorado one winter and sold insurance in Texas the following spring. She wandered north to New York and was a temp secretary on Wall Street until she grew tired of the corporate world and urban life and returned to the West Coast, becoming an artist’s model in Santa Cruz.

She never cut herself off completely from her family, of course. She called home every ­couple of weeks or sometimes every other month, checking in, telling them where she could be reached—­just in case.

What?

In case something happened to Mom? Or Molly? Or Kevin?

In case one of them fell off the face of the earth, the way Carleen and Emily had, or dropped dead, as Daddy had?

She had been living in Miami this winter when Kevin tracked her down, told her about the summer trip he wanted to take.

I’ve been seeing this girl, Katherine, all year, he told Rory, and she’s spending the summer backpacking across Europe. She wants me to come with her—­

"Oh, wow, you’ve got to go!" Rory burst out enthusiastically. "I did that between my junior and senior years, remember? I almost didn’t come back to the States. It was incredible. You’d better be going, Kev."

Silence.

And then it had dawned on her, why he was calling her.

Because he wouldn’t be able to go if she didn’t come home to take care of Mom and Molly.

And so, here she is.

She’s home for the summer.

In Lake Charlotte, where ­people still talk about the long-­ago summer when four teenaged girls mysteriously vanished and were never heard from again.

"You grew your hair."

Rory looks up at her mother, who’s sitting across the table, watching her.

Unnerved by the sudden steady gaze from those familiar green eyes the exact shade of her own, Rory isn’t sure what to say. Her shoulder-­length auburn hair is shorter, actually, than she’d worn it all winter in Miami, when she would pull it into a thick braid and let it dangle down her back. Then again, it’s longer than the boyish bob she’d worn for a year or so a while back, which, come to think of it, might very well have been the last time she had seen her mother.

Maura is toying with the heavy silver cross hanging from a chain around her neck as she watches Rory. She’s always worn that cross, Rory recalls. She once said it was a confirmation gift from her own mother. When Carleen, and then Rory, made their confirmations, Maura had bought them similar crosses. Rory remembers wearing it just once, until someone said, Hey, what’re you, a nun all of a sudden? After that, Rory had put it away in the bottom drawer of her dresser and hoped her mother would never mention it.

She hadn’t.

Why did you grow it? her mother wants to know, still looking at her head.

I just . . . I like long hair.

Her mother’s hand flies to her own shorn gray locks. Kevin said he takes her to the beautician every six weeks to have it trimmed in this easy-­care style, reminding Rory not to miss the next appointment.

When Rory was growing up, Maura Connolly’s thick, glossy black hair had hung down to her waist. Most of the time she wore it loose, but sometimes, on hot summer days, she coiled it at the back of her neck in some intricate twist that deceptively required only a few pins. Rory would sit on the big queen-­sized bed upstairs and watch her, marveling at her mother’s expert movements at the back of her head that didn’t allow a single tuft of hair to escape, even though she couldn’t see what she was doing.

‘‘Do mine now, Mommy," she would beg, and her mother would smile and pretend to tame her daughter’s wild, flaming locks into some semblance of her own hairstyle.

And though Daddy would make a point of commenting on her grown-­up ’do, Rory would know she looked nothing like her mother, or Carleen. They both had that exquisite ebony-­and-­ivory coloring; dark, dark hair and pale, flawless skin.

But Rory had inherited her father’s red hair and freckles. Not even silky, soft red hair, but wiry, unruly curls that tangled past her neck and refused to lie flat against her scalp.

Molly? her mother suddenly says, turning her head and looking over her shoulder, toward the screen door at the other end of the kitchen. Where’s Molly?

She’s baby-­sitting next door, Mom. Remember?

Kevin?

He’s not here, Mom, she says patiently.

She thinks about how she’d hugged her kid brother that last time at the airport, wishing they’d had more time together, thinking that maybe she’ll stick around awhile after he comes home in September.

Go ahead, Rory, he’d said gruffly, squirming as though he wasn’t used to hugs. Get out of here. Your parking meter is going to expire.

Don’t you want me to wait until you get on the plane so I can see you off? she’d asked, only half teasingly.

Nah, he’d said with a casual wave of his hand, and she wondered whether he was worried she’d make some big emotional scene telling him good-­bye, or whether he was afraid he’d change his own mind about leaving.

‘‘Kevin’s in Europe for the summer, Mom, Rory says now. Remember?"

Her mother nods, but her eyes are blank.

Rory takes a bite of the salad she made for their dinner, noticing her mother’s still-­heaping plate.

Eat, Mom, she says.

It’s too hot to eat. The words are expressionless.

That’s why I made just a salad. It’s light, and it’s healthy. You love salad, Rory adds, then wonders why on earth she would say such a thing. She has no idea whether her mother loves salad; has no idea what her mother likes to eat.

Maura never was much of a cook. Occasionally, she’d surprise the rest of them and whip up something that actually looked and tasted good. Like the loaf of Irish soda bread she made one St. Patrick’s Day, or the pots of vegetable soup she’d concoct when the summer garden yielded more tomatoes and beans and zucchini than they knew what to do with.

But most of the time, she boiled hot dogs and served spaghetti made with sauce from a jar and, when all else failed, which was several times a week, ordered pizza.

No one seemed to mind.

So, Mom, Rory says brightly, looking around the kitchen so she won’t have to gaze into that disconcerting emptiness any longer. I was thinking that we should fix the house up a little while I’m here.

No reply.

But her mother does take a bite of her salad, putting it gingerly into her mouth and setting her fork down again while she chews. Her movements are slow, mechanical.

We can take down that wallpaper, Rory goes on, gesturing at the faded ivy pattern covering the kitchen walls, "and put up something new. Or maybe just paint everything white. Brighten it up a little. What do you think?"

No reply.

Rory points to the window above the scarred old porcelain sink. We can get some pretty curtains to hang there, she suggests, wondering what ever happened to the white priscillas with red rickrack trim that used to be there. And the cabinets are so dark—­maybe we can strip that stain, or paint them. The pantry cupboards, too.

She glances at the narrow galley space adjoining the kitchen, its three walls lined with glass-­fronted storage space above rows of drawers below. It would be nice, she thinks, if the cupboards were painted white and if, beyond the glass, you saw pretty china or sparkling glassware instead of the jumble of canned goods and cereal boxes stored there now.

This place has so much potential, Rory thinks wistfully, noting the elaborate crown moldings and hardwood floors and high ceilings.

But no one has ever bothered to do anything with the sprawling Victorian. Not the previous owners, and certainly not Daddy and Mom. He was the least handy person on the planet, and Mom was the least creative. They had simply bought the place when Mom was pregnant with Rory, realizing they’d outgrown their one-­bedroom apartment over Talucci’s Pizza Parlor, and they’d moved in.

And that was that.

Growing up here, Rory had never appreciated the house as anything more than a roof over her head, a place where she had her own room, a big yard to play in, and, at the back of the property, the vast bank of woods that eventually led down to the lake.

Only now does she realize that this must once have been a grand home, set far back on a sloping, shady, brick-­paved street above the downtown district. These days, the more upscale citizens of Lake Charlotte live in the new network of cul-­de-­sacs west of town, a development called Green Haven Glen. But before the turn of the century, Hayes Street had been one of the most fashionable addresses in town.

The other houses on the block are similar to this one—­gingerbread monstrosities displaying architectural quirks typical of the previous century: turrets and cupolas and wraparound verandas. Most of them, like this one, are surrounded by tall black iron fences and shaded by vast, spreading trees, their stone foundations and latticework obscured by old-­fashioned blooming shrubs and perennials—­lilacs, hydrangeas, peonies, lilies, irises.

And most of them, unlike this one, have been painstakingly restored in the years since Rory left home. Now that nearby Saratoga Springs has once again become a popular resort town, the once-­depressed local economy has slowly bounced back, and it shows.

When she drove into town last night, Rory had noticed that the streetlamps on Main Street are bedecked with hanging pots trailing colorful petunias and impatiens, and that the 1950’s-­era aluminum façades and neon signs of the commercial buildings seem to have been replaced by charming, old-­fashioned wooden storefronts, some with a hand-­painted shingle dangling above the entrance. There’s a bagel shop now, and several conspicuously trendy cafes, and right here on Hayes Street, the Shillings’ old house is now a bed and breakfast.

The Connollys’ rattletrap home stands out more than ever. Even the place next door, once occupied by Miss Prendergrast, and after that, by Emily’s family, is sporting new coats of paint: contrasting shades of rose and plum, which, Molly informed Rory this afternoon, were the original colors of the house a hundred years ago.

How do you know that? Rory had asked, amused by her sister’s authoritarian air.

"I’m friends with the ­couple that lives there. The Randalls. I baby-­sit for their little boy."

That’s where she is now. Rory can hear her voice drifting in the open windows as she pushes the toddler in a tire swing in the backyard next door.

Rory supposes it’s good that the old house is finally lived in after all these years. Not long after Emily vanished, her family picked up and moved away, and as far as Rory knows, the house, already in disrepair, had stood empty ever since.

She tries to tear her thoughts away from that depressing subject. She rarely allows herself to think of the friend she had lost a decade ago. Or of her sister.

But now that she’s back in Lake Charlotte, the topic isn’t going to be easy to avoid, even if it happened . . . nine years ago? No, ten.

Ten years ago this week, the first girl had disappeared.

How could it be that four girls could simply evaporate into thin air, leaving not a single clue?

In the back of her mind, Rory had assumed for a long time that someday one or more of the bodies would be found. If you follow this type of thing on the evening news, it seems as though missing persons always turn up dead sooner or later, and the cases are solved, or at least put to rest.

The Lake Charlotte Police Department had worked around the clock trying to come up with some evidence that would at least reveal what might have happened. But there was nothing.

Various theories had been discussed on playgrounds and at lunch counters and over back fences. Some ­people thought the girls had been kidnapped, drugged and taken out of the country, where they were sold into white slavery. Others—­mostly middle school boys—­guessed that they had been abducted by aliens. And then there was the grisly speculation that they had simply been butchered by some serial killer, their bodies burned or buried or weighted and dumped in the lake.

Of course, no one ever voiced those theories to Rory’s face. She still recalls how many conversations drew to an awkward, abrupt halt when she would appear. As the sister of one victim and closest friend of another, she had become something of a celebrity. And despite her typical middle-­child hunger for attention, this was the last kind of notoriety she—­

Where’s Kevin?

Her mother’s words snap her back to the present, and she sighs softly. He’s not here, Mom. We just talked about it a few minutes ago. Remember?

Is he upstairs?

No.

Across the ocean. And you won’t see him for months.

He’s on vacation, Rory says gently. But I’m here now. And I’m going to take care of you and Molly. If there’s anything you need, you just tell me and I’ll get it for you. Okay?

Her mother’s eyes are aimed toward her face, but they’re eerily unfocused, as though she isn’t really seeing anything. She’s faded again, retreating to that distant place where no one can reach her . . . and, perhaps, where nothing can hurt her.

Rory goes back to her own salad, forcing herself to eat, though she suddenly has no appetite.

CHAPTER TWO

Molly carries little Ozzie into the house and sets him on the floor in the kitchen.

She stoops beside him and brushes dirt off his little khaki shorts. It lands on the worn green linoleum, but she figures it doesn’t matter. The entire house is under do-­it-­yourself construction; there’s plaster dust and dirt and clutter everywhere. And it’s only going to get worse when they rip off most of the back wall of the house to add the big family room Michelle has been talking about.

Look at you, you’re filthy, she tells Ozzie, picking dandelion fluff out of his curly white-­blond hair.

Fil-­see, Ozzie echoes, grinning.

Yup, filthy. You need a bath before bed—­

At the mention of the word bed, the two-­year-­old opens his mouth and lets out a piercing screech.

No, you don’t have to go to bed yet, Molly hastily assures him.

No bed! he bellows. No bed!

No bed, Molly agrees. First a bath. You want a bath? It’ll cool you off. It’s so sticky out tonight. Come on, let’s go right up the back stairs.

He allows her to pick him up and carry him across the kitchen, where she tugs on a wooden door until it opens to reveal a steep flight to the second floor.

The treads creak as she ventures up through the shadows, and she keeps up a steady stream of cheerful conversation with Ozzie to keep herself from being spooked.

There’s something about this old house that makes her uneasy, but she doesn’t like to dwell on it, because if she lets it bother her, she won’t be able to baby-­sit for Ozzie anymore, or come visit Lou and Michelle and the new baby, who is due in August.

Until the Randalls moved in here last year, this place was known to Molly and her friends—­in fact, to every kid in Lake Charlotte—­as the haunted house. Everyone knows what happened to the last kid who lived here, Emily Anghardt.

Well, actually, no one knows what happened to her, but that’s the scary thing.

Emily—­and Molly’s older sister Carleen—­and two other girls fell off the face of the earth ten years ago.

Molly remembers Careen, even though everyone says she couldn’t possibly. She remembers Careen giving her a present, a doll with black curls so like Molly’s, and that Carleen kept an eye on her while she played on the playground at Point Cedar Park. She remembers Carleen getting her undressed for her bath, touching each of her bare toes gently as she recited the nursery rhyme Molly loved:

This little piggy went to market

This little piggy stayed home

This little piggy had roast beef

This little piggy had none

And this little piggy cried wee wee wee wee

All the way home.

She remembers how Carleen would then tickle her feet as Molly screamed in delight, begging her sister to recite the rhyme again. And again.

And she remembers that Carleen always would.

She doesn’t remember anything about Carleen’s disappearance, which is strange, if you think about it, because you’d think a kid would be aware of something that traumatic happening in her household.

She does remember Daddy dying—­how Mom had started screaming from the bedroom one night and how Kevin, who had been reading her a story, had dashed down the hall, and then the sirens had wailed up to the front door and men came pounding up the stairs. Mom screamed through it all, nonstop screeching at the top of her lungs.

And after that, she never screamed again, or even raised her voice. From that day on, she has spoken in a soft monotone, and she never smiles, or cries. Never betrays any hint of emotion.

Kevin says she’s depressed, but Molly doesn’t know about that. Molly’s been depressed before, plenty of times—­most recently, when she found out last month that her current crush, Ryan Baker, likes Jessica Thomerson. But when she feels bad about something, she doesn’t act like Mom.

Mom’s basically just . . .

Well, crazy.

It’s not something Molly has ever acknowledged to anyone, not even her friend Rebecca Wasner, who lives two doors down and must have a pretty good idea. But who wants to go around admitting their mother’s crazy?

Still, there’s no other word for it. Mom’s pretty much always spaced out, and she asks questions that make no sense, and half the time she’s talking to ­people that aren’t there.

Bath? Ozzie says, as they walk down the second-­floor hall past the open bathroom door.

Oh, right. Bath, Molly agrees. I almost forgot what we were doing up here.

She makes a detour into the bathroom and starts the water running into the old claw-­foot tub, plugging the drain with the rubber stopper attached to a silver, beaded chain.

Then she carries Ozzie down the narrow, dark hall with its peeling wallpaper, going into his room at the far end, at the head of the wide, graceful, open front staircase.

The little boy’s room is one of the few areas in the house that isn’t being renovated. Lou and Michelle fixed it up right after they moved in, patching the walls and painting them white and refinishing the hardwood floor so that it’s shiny and smooth, so different from the floors in the rest of the house.

A bright pink cast-­iron doorstop shaped like a pig keeps the door to the hallway from swinging closed; Michelle had mentioned that her husband keeps saying he’ll fix the hinges, but he hasn’t gotten a chance yet, so she bought this doorstop at a craft fair recently. They had all kinds of different animals, she’d told Molly, but Ozzie chose the pig, because he loves when you do ‘This Little Piggy,’ Molly.

There’s a built-­in bookcase on the wall to the right of the door, jammed with children’s books. And a colorful mural is painted on one wall, courtesy of Michelle, an artist. A plump, bespectacled Mother Goose is surrounded by characters from her nursery rhymes: Humpty-­Dumpty and Little Jack Horner and Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, and others Molly doesn’t recognize.

Probably because after Carleen disappeared, they weren’t very big on nursery rhymes in the Connolly household. She remembers Kevin reading to her now and then, usually from books that had no pictures and were adventure or science fiction stories about boys his age.

Nobody else ever bothered to read to her, although Kevin claims Daddy used to tell her stories before tucking her into bed at night.

She wishes she could remember that. She wishes she could remember more of him, more things they did together, so at least she’d have that. A solid memory of his face and his voice and his love.

But there’s so little left of him in her mind, just snatches of songs he would sing to her and fragments of scenes where he would be kissing or hugging her.

She can’t remember Mom ever being affectionate.

Rory, either, although when she came yesterday, she had folded Molly into her arms in a stiff hug.

Molly sets Ozzie on his changing table and begins absently stripping off his clothes.

Well, she amends, maybe it’s half my fault that the hug was so stiff. After all, she’s hardly feeling warm-­hearted toward her sister.

How can she, when Rory’s stayed as far away as possible for most of Molly’s life? Kevin says it’s Rory’s way of dealing with what happened to Carleen and Emily, and to Dad.

As far as Molly’s concerned, it’s a lousy way of dealing. She barely knows her one remaining older sister, a sister Kevin claims loves and cares about her, about all of them.

Doesn’t she always remember your birthday, and send you Christmas presents? he points out whenever Molly grumbles about Rory’s absence. As if a few presents—­most of them inappropriate, like a Barbie doll, when Molly has never played with dolls in her life—­can make up for the fact that Rory never bothers with any of them.

Reviews for All the Way Home

[allyofthedawn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story is very well laid out, and the characters are believable. Overall, a very good read.

[gpangel_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

All the Way Home by Wendy Corsi Staub was originally published is 2007. It has recently been reissued in digital format.When Rory was child her older sister, Carleen, disappeared. In short order, her best friend also disappeared as well as several other girls in their town. Then Rory's father passed away, leaving her mentally ill mother behind. Rory couldn't handle it and left to become an artist. Her brother Kevin took care of her younger sister, Molly, and their mother for years. Now, Kevin and his girlfriend want to take a European vacation. So, Rory comes home for awhile.When she arrives she finds her mother's mental health is far worse than she imagined. On top of that her younger sister is resentful of Rory for staying away so long and is going through the early teen years. Molly does a great deal of babysitting for the young couple next door, Michelle and Lou and their two year old son, Ozzie.Michelle and Lou live in the house where Rory's best friend, Emily lived until she disappeared. Now Michelle, who is pregnant with her second child, and alone in the house much of the time, believes she hears noises coming from Ozzie's room and Rory thinks she can smell Carleen's signature perfume from time to time. When Molly's best friend, Rebecca, disappears on the anniversary of Carleen's disappearance, the town gets nervous and the media zooms in. This brings in a true crime author that may hold a secret to Carleen's activities right before she vanished.This is one of those books that left me in the limbo between a three and a four star rating. So, really, I would have given it a 3.5 if I could have.The Gothic ambience is right up my alley. Large old houses that may be haunted, mysterious and strange characters that may or may not be sinister, and a decade old unsolved case, plus dark family secrets that are finally revealed.Some parts of the book didn't work as well for me. The ending was a little over the top. A sort of been there, done that kind of thing.I put this in the romantic suspense genre, but it's really more of a suspense novel without much romance. The last chapter hints at romance and that's about it as far at that goes. So, if you are looking hot romance, it's not in this book. But, if you want a fairly solid, pretty creepy at times, mystery, suspense novel, you will probably find this one enjoyable.Over all this one gets B/B-

[pattylouise_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

All The Way HomebyWendi Corsi StaubMy "in a nutshell" summary...Four young girls disappear...some from their very own beds...the crime is never solved. My thoughts after reading this book...Mysterious and thought provoking from the start...this is one of those books that will make a car trip or a plane trip or sitting out by the pool or on the beach fly by. I could not stop reading because I had to know what happened and what was still happening. The appearance of the mysterious stranger at the wrought iron gates...pierced my soul! Who is he? Who is she?Ok...way too many mysteries in this book make it even more appealing. Rory hasn't been home in years...mostly to avoid the nightmare that began hen her older sister disappeared. But now that she is back...things are worse than ever. Mysterious strangers, more lies, and more disappearances begin to occur. I had no clue as to who what or where all the evil was coming from...I was freaked out by the kitten disappearing! And then when people began following suit...I could not stop reading!What I loved about this book...I read it last night, I read it this morning, I read it on the deck, and I finally finished it inside in our sunroom. I was not capable of putting this book down or saving it for later. It's not fun at all...it's nail biting terror. I was even capable of believing that nuns were evil in this book. I convinced myself that I totally knew who the murderer was...only to be shocked by this dramatic conclusion!What I did not love about this book...Hmmm...I can't even think of anything. Final thoughts...I haven't read books by this author in a while and I had forgotten her magic with a mystery. This one was tense, complicated and extremely satisfying...it's the perfect summer mystery!

[kace_12 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In starting this book, the thing seems so familiar...I have a feeling I got another double book...that is to say, bought a book I had previously bought and read. This is where this site will come in handy...I've literally read hundreds of books I can't begin to remember. Sucks that I prefer to buy than check out from the library, but serves me right for cutting out the middle man I guess.Will keep reading to reaquaint myself with the story. If I remeber correctly I liked all right the first time around, it'd be interesting to see what my impression is now.I did read this before, and I finished it again. It was alright for its genre, I'd probably read more of her books, in fact have in the past.